What's the point in cold-calling?

Posted by on June 25, 2015

The law consultancy, protecting.co.uk, has completed research that has shown that the time equivalent of two staff posts are tied up in the average company solely dealing with sales calls to which the answer is 99% of the time no.

It has also shown that the worst offenders are recruitment agencies and insurance companies. These companies often employ staff who are paid on commission and will often call multiple times until they make a sale, the study finds.

And to top it off, scam callers are becoming a growing nuisance to companies as well.

The spokesperson of protecting.co.uk Mark Hall, says “It’s one of the great distractions for anybody trying to run and maintain a business. You find yourself under siege from unwanted sales calls every single day.”

“Whilst some businesses develop a thick skin and learn to live with the annoyance, others find that staff are tied up for long periods separating legitimate sales calls and customer enquiries from unwanted cold callers and potential scammers.”

Hall adds that at a company of around 100 employees, that could add up to the time equivalent of two people working full time – just answering the phones to these unwanted callers.

“That’s about £50,000 per year wasted at absolutely no benefit to anybody!” he says.

Of 650 businesses evaluated in the research, Protecting found that the worst offenders for this sort of practice are recruitment companies, insurance sales, pay-per-click, utilities, search engine optimisation and card processing. 89% of individuals asked said that they would never buy from a cold caller and this figure rises to 91% for cold callers from pay-per-click and search engine optimisation companies.

Just under 100% say that they would be put off from a company for life if they persisted in cold calling them despite being asked to stop.

Hall says that amongst legitimate companies involved with cold calling, there are also a fair share of scammers that claim to be following up bank or card fraud and claim to be certain companies (selling non-existent services).

“Most companies would rather deal with tried and tested companies that they know well and this is why the vast majority of cold calls are unsuccessful.”

Protecting.co.uk has recommended blocking the numbers of the worst offenders and registering with the telephone preference service so that honest companies know you are not accepting unsolicited sales calls.

“Although it may sound harsh, the best resource is to approach a regular cold-calling company directly and make it clear that you will never purchase their services. Then, back it up with a threat of legal recourse if they continue to bother you.”